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Giuliani: Sochi threats hard to contain

The popularity of the resort among the wealthy and powerful has led to criticisms that it's become unaffordable to the ordinary Russians who flocked to the city after its establishment as a vacation spot in the 1950s.

The Sochi Olympics aren't taking place in Sochi proper, which technically consists of one 32-square-kilometer district called Tsentralny.

Instead, athletes are competing in Adler, an area within Greater Sochi just north of Georgia's breakaway territory, Abkhazia.

A coastal cluster of venues south of Sochi proper house the Central Olympic Stadium and rink sports including ice hockey, curling and figure skating.

Outdoor events such as skiing and bobsleighing are being hosted within the Krasnaya Polyana resort area, about 50 kilometers away in the Western Caucasus Mountains.

3. Restaurants and bars will be smoke-free

Butting out for the Olympics: tough when 60% of Russian men smoke.

In Russia, you're never far from a cigarette lighter.

Back in October, that was a lucky strike for the Olympics when a man whipped one from his pocket and quickly replenished the Olympic flame, which had blown out in the wind.

But the Sochi Olympics have committed to a smoke-free event, making it the 12th Games to do so.

This will be a trial in a country still in love with smoking -- nearly 60% of adult males and 40% of the total adult population admitted to smoking regularly in 2012, according to the World Health Organization.

Their tall lamb's wool hats, emblazoned coats and flamboyant dance style have earned Cossacks a place in the world's vision of Russia, with help from Russian literary icons Leo Tolstoy and Alexander Pushkin.

Now, the once feared horsemen who secured the frontier for Russian tsars have joined forces with police patrolling Sochi.

Russia and the Cossacks have a patchy history.

After centuries as allies of Russia, the east Slavic people suffered harshly under the communists for their opposition to the Red Army.

But since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cossacks have gradually returned to popular favor in Russia.

Echoing the mid-19th-century Caucasian War when Cossacks served as border guards, current governor Aleksandr Tkachev of Sochi's Krasnodar region hired a thousand fur-clad Cossacks to help to secure the Olympic Games.

Cossacks make up only a small fraction of the approximately 40,000 security forces at the Olympics.

7. It might not be vodka in that shot glass

Russian toasting: Better learn the rules.

Russia's toasting rules are complicated.

What, or whom, to toast changes with each clink, but one constant remains: vodka.

In Sochi, however, vodka is often swapped for its fruitier Caucasian counterpart, chacha, a Georgian pomace brandy, often distilled like moonshine (so if you aim to taste, you're advised to look for safer, bottled varieties).

Olympics visitors can enter the Caucasian Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that partially overlaps with Sochi National Park in the Western Caucasus.

The Yew and Boxwood grove -- the biosphere spot most easily accessible from Sochi -- features 1,000-year-old trees and plant relics from prehistoric times.

One of the largest protected areas in Europe, the preserve has around 30 endemic mammals including the Caucasian bison and the Persian leopard, currently being reintroduced to the region and also a mascot for the Sochi Olympics.